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All this talk about how the “Beakniss” poster was finally fixed for the DVD release has got us thinking… Where’s the Mockingjay Part 2 teaser poster? We learned the hard way last year to not expect Lionsgate to follow the same promotional timelines from one movie to the other. The Mockingjay Part 1 teaser poster was released in late January 2014 only to be followed by four months of absolutely nothing about the movie, so we don’t mind them delaying the poster release if it’s followed by some more frequent teases along the way this year.

Here’s a fan version – where’s the real one?

We have reached March now, and still crickets. And yes, the MJ1 DVD comes out in the US this week so the focus is still on selling the hell out of that. But since we’re really bored with all the nothing going on, here are some theories on when the teaser poster will be released.

Week of March 16 to accompany an animated logo teaser before Insurgent’s theatrical release – basically a repeat of what was at the very end of the Mockingjay Part 1 credits, but why not show it again to remind us that the movie exists?

Week of April 13 to tease an actual Mockingjay Part 2 teaser trailer the following week to play with Age of Adaline (a Lionsgate film) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (not Lionsgate, but you know, a HUGE blockbuster).

Or, just some random week for funsies.

We repeat – these are just our theories about what timing would make sense from a promotional perspective (including the talk of any teasers before movies, it’s all guessing games at this point).

When do you think we’ll finally see the last version of our favorite birdie?

Last night was the Oscars, and Julianne Moore won for her role in Still Alice! She’s been nominated a few times, but this is her first win. Woo, make that 3 academy award winning actors in the Mockingjay movies.

While Mockingjay Part 1 had no nominations, it was there in spirit right from the opening number, with Katniss pictured among other cinematic heroines as “small town girls who change the world by challenging the norm.” Yes, oh yes. Well done on that one, Oscars.

Josh Hutcherson was also a presenter, and he did a fine job of speaking and walking and not falling. (We’re not belittling this, when you know a billion or so people of watching, doing all those things is fairly impressive). Host Neil Patrick Harris introduced him as “the Pe(e)ta who won’t throw paint at you” and we love the THG reference, and the Hanging Tree music that accompanied his walk to the stage.

It’s fitting that Josh was a part of the ceremony, because the last time he was at the Oscars was when The Kids are All Right, the movie where he played Julianne’s Moore’s son, was nominated.

We’re dying a little from the cuteness.

During red carpet interviews, we also got confirmation that yes, Josh will be shooting some final (epilogue) scenes later in the year. So breathe a sigh of relief, it looks like there will be no completely unexpected/crazy/insane plot twist where they kill off Peeta in the end (UNLESS THEY DO IT IN THE EPILOGUE!).

Tomorrow is the Academy Awards, aka the Oscars and lo, nothing Hunger Games was nominated! That means one thing, right? Yup– we don’t have to watch! I’m imagining that crickets are sounding across the interwebz now. Sorry folks! I mean yes watch, tune in, make fake ballots, and themed mocktails, and cocktails to your hearts content, while you watch pretty people, and more pretty people traipse a red carpet in the Los Angeles sunshine, then read out loud from teleprompters like feeble, farsighted, novices! It’ll be a gas and

I think she’s gonna win

a half!

There’s something very Capitol about the Oscars, no? Because when push comes to shove characters like Caesar Flickerman, and the style teams, are just morphed versions of the Fashion Police on the E! Network, or Ryan Seacrest, whom I think still hosts American Idol– but I’m not sure, ’cause I’ve never watched the show in my life. American Idol that is, I have watched the Oscars numerous times.

Tomorrow, however since The Hunger Games is yet again not recognized by the Academy for its feats in film making, we’re going to have to suffice with rooting for Julianne Moore for her work in the film Still Alice, as well as crossing our fingers, toes, and eyes that Josh walks across that stage without tripping, fumbling, or having his presenting partner be a foot taller than him!
Tune in at your own discretion everyone! I for one will sparingly do so, and the entire time I’ll be pretending that Boyhood is really about Peeta.

I broke down and bought Mockingjay Part 1 on Digital. Life is short, and JJ’s got Amazon Video credits. I’ve had some fun and some tears watching the movie again this week. Owning the movie (and watching again & again) allows you to zone in on some of the details, and obsessive fans that we are, we love all of it.

First, let’s go back to a post from a few weeks back when I said it looked like Peeta’s house had been destroyed. I didn’t have an image of it then, but now, check it out.

The houses across the street from Katniss and Haymitch are gone. Please rewrite all your end of Mockingjay fanfics with that new twist. I can never get enough of those fics anyway.

There’s some more details of the world-building from a deleted scene of Katniss and Boggs walking through 13. Sadly, this did not include running into Finnick in only his underwear, but it showed some really cool new things.

You know, holding out for the DVD isn’t nearly as hard as we’d expected. Why? Because half the special features are already online anyway!

Not that we’re complaining, of course! We have no problem on getting closer to the Digital HD watchers level. And we’re learning A LOT from these documentary mini-clips! For instance…

1) BREAKING SHIT IS FUN!

Destroyed District 12 was an actual demolition site– an abandoned factory plant– with some set pieces added in. And tearing apart District 12 was apparently really cathartic for the crew, especially Production Designer Philip Messina!

2) DISTRICT 8 ALMOST HIT HORROR MOVIE LEVELS

Though the film wanted to portray realistic injuries, Francis Lawrence asked that most of the make-up be toned down from the department’s original plans, because they wanted to make people look gnarly. REALLY GNARLY.

3) THIS CAST IS MADE OF AWESOME

Not that we didn’t already know this, of course. Still, it’s great to hear how Julianne Moore was enticed into the series and Mahershala Ali checked off multiple boxes on his career bucket list by working on these films!

4) RAPPELLING FASTER THAN AN ELEVATOR DROPS IS INTIMIDATING

This was one of the few moments of the story caught and videotaped during the filming process, but back then, we didn’t realize how big of a deal it was. Considering our stomachs sometimes flips when an elevator lurches too quickly, this is kind of a thrill ride.

5) IT’S MIGUEL’S FAULT

We didn’t really like the Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack much (CUE THE TROLLS! ..It’s a matter of opinion, y’all. Deal.) The most heinous song of all was The Chemical Brother’s and Miguel song, “This Is Not A Game”. We liked the intro of the song, but then it just went straight to hell. If we’re understanding Lorde correctly in this short, the intro is the only part of the song that The Chemical Brothers crafted. Soooo yeah… that disaster is Miguel’s fault.

MOCKINGJAY PART 1 is out on Digital HD today, two weeks and a half weeks prior to its DVD release!

And even though we could watch and re-watch the movie RIGHT NOW, we’re holding out for the DVD. We know… we know…

See, it’s not that we don’t love the convenience of Digital HD. It’s just that– as many fans have learned over the course of the day– Digital HD sales can be deceptive.

Digital HD is a Special Features smorgasbord. iTunes is the only Digital HD version with all the major special features– the only one with the “The Mockingjay Lives: The Making of Mockingjay – Part 1“ documentary, the major draw for many people. The rest has a mix of a few minor special features. Down With The Capitol has a great guide, should you need to compare said Digital HD editions.

It’s not that DVDs are much different. There’s varying features for every DVD with one company getting the much better deal. The catch, then? It’s much hard to find and compare the Digital HD special features, and thus harder to know the deal you’re getting. For instance, Amazon and Vudu are charging exactly the damn same as iTunes ($19.99) for far less content. And the only reason some of the fandom might realize this is that DWTC was badass enough to go full-on investigative journalist and contact the companies for details, in some cases. Meanwhile, DVD special editions practically scream their features from the rooftops, which is pretty damn convenient for us!

Maybe it’s just us, but shouldn’t these companies be trying really hard to sell us their product in all its glory? And if that product is slightly lacking, shouldn’t they use competitive pricing? Maybe we’re crazy, but don’t these people want us to buy stuff from them?!

We Just Want To Feed The Special Edition Craving With No Hassle!The Girl With The Pearl

There are certain levers that Lionsgate knows to pull to REALLY set the fandom off (in a positive way). 1) Tease new material. 2) Make fans do something silly on social media to get the new material. 3) Make the new material feature Peeta. Or Katniss and Peeta. That one is when you want total fandom mega insanity x 1,000,000.

They did all three this time, releasing on President’s Day a new deleted scene of Snow and Peeta in the Capitol, after making fans go crazy with the #UnlockMockingjay tweets again. This time, the unlocking had a great payoff – the scene is 3 minutes of fantasticness for many reasons, but I understand why they left it out of the film – it would’ve given the Capitol’s strategy away too early in the story.

It starts out with President Snow watching one of our favorites scenes from the Quarter Quell, when Peeta is revived from being electrocuted and Katniss is genuinely showing her feelings of relief, and dare we say, love, for him. Movie!Snow really watches a lot of Katniss and Peeta, it’s pretty damn sick actually. I can’t imagine what obsessively watching the two of them together does to help strategize his plans to keep power, other than he’s a secret Everlark shipper, but the really sadistic type of shipper that writes fanfic with MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.

Anyhoo, he’s interrupted from his QQ rewatch by his granddaughter, who wants to meet Peeta. Because who wouldn’t? Sign me up too. But, Snow’s like, “No way, he’s mine.” and shuts her down. Then Peeta arrives, appearing to be scared shitless, quite understandably. And they have a nice little chat where Snow praises Peeta and explains what he wants him to do – use his words and approachable public image to help calm the public and stop the rebellion.

Only SNOW’S NOT ASKING… Chilling final line. Also pretty disturbing is how Snow just casually lies about how Peeta’s cooperation would get him back HOME again. You know, this place.

Not cool, Snow. Not cool at all. In fact, we really hate you right now.

We’ll hate you even more after we watch Mockingjay Part 1 again tomorrow.

I haven’t seen ‘em, and “‘em” would be the myriad of Behind The Scenes pictures, and video clips that have been circulating the internets for the last several days. Yeah, clearly there’s something wrong with me, but the thing is– I don’t want to see ‘em.

Call my crazy, but I kind of like the element of surprise, and not having to see the infamous Finnick In His Undies scene on my iPhone… on Instagram, is more than a let down– dare I say it, but anti-climactic. See I’ve got this thing in this room in my home, it’s called a Blu-ray player, and it’s attached to this other thing called a High Definition Television set. And there’s this amazing thing that happens when you put this other thing, consequently called a Blu-ray disc, into the Blu-ray player. I think you might have got the idea! I’d much rather not see anything new concerning Mockingjay Part 1 in an inferior platform in comparison to the said technology that lives comfortably somewhere in my home, whereas my cell phone mostly lives in my pocket. Tiny Finnick will not do, I say! He must be at least bigger than my palm!

All that being said, I do know that releasing all these images and videos is to create buzz, and buzz is good– even though I think we all know that no matter what Lionsgate does to promote the release of Mockingjay Part 1 on disc, they’re going to make boat loads of money. BOAT LOADS.

We are moths to the flame! Bring on the release all ready, my Blu-ray player is humming at the ready!

To promote the release of Mockingjay Part 1 on Digital next Tuesday, Lionsgate is releasing some of the extra features to the media. Behind the scenes with a little snippet of the Finnick underwear scene! And now some of the deleted scenes too. One with Katniss and Effie and another of Katniss and Haymitch. Both very touching, great scenes, that due to time, tone, or continuity, were left out of the final cut. In the interest of conserving emotional energy, we’re going to pace ourselves here. It’s rare that we get such multitudes of goodies on one day. So today, the Katniss and Haymitch “We’re Still in the Game” scene!

The Katniss and Haymitch scene seems to occur right after she first sees him again in District 13 and is walking away to avoid speaking to him.

She’s pissed that he didn’t save Peeta. And then she tells him to “say it” as well – put some blame back on her for letting Peeta out of her sight. It shows how in sync these two are. He knows she’s going to blame him for one thing AND that she wants him to blame her for losing Peeta to the Capitol as well. Also a nice touch is the “distill my own turnips” line. District 13’s food staple of turnips didn’t make the movie, but it’s fun to know it made the screenplay.

This scene here is as much of a pep talk as Haymitch can give, considering his personality, but it’s great to see this side of him. He’s trying to give her some hope and motivate her. It’s clear she hears him, but she’s not quite ready to truly BELIEVE him yet – that their efforts here could actually save Peeta. It’s such a solid scene between the two it makes me wonder why they took it out. Again, maybe the time constraints or concern about the flow of the story. But it’s great that we’ve got it now.